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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted with salt, pepper, optional sage, and bread stuffing, served with a gravy thickened with flour and heart and liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the pig in cold water and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Rub the inside with a mixture of salt, pepper, and sage if desired.

  3. Make stuffing by spreading butter on the bread, sprinkling with salt, pepper, sage, and onion if desired.

  4. Pour enough hot water over the bread to moisten it, then fill the pig's body with the stuffing and sew or tie it closed.

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a spit and put a pint of water in the dripping pan with salt and pepper.

  2. Position the pig a little distance from the fire, basting as it roasts and gradually moving it closer.

  3. Cook for about 15 minutes per pound, checking for doneness when the eyes drop out.

  4. When done, rub the pig with a cloth dipped in butter until the skin is crisp.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Dredge flour into the gravy, boil it, and add the chopped heart and liver, then serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sage + livertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pig
Is the main cooked mass, so its size sets the cooking time.
Bread
Soaked with hot water, it forms a moist stuffing that fills the cavity.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the skin turn crisp and golden.
Flour
Thickens the drippings into a gravy.
Heart and liver
Chopped fine and added to the gravy, they contribute rich, meaty flavor.

The step that matters

Checking doneness. Cooking time is only an estimate based on weight, so the pig should be checked for doneness at the eyes. Roasting heat varies with fire position, and undercooked pork can carry harmful microbes, so doneness must be confirmed rather than assumed.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, wheat, bread, butter, flour, liver):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, wheat, bread, butter, flour, liver. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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